


Ballet and Pop-Tarts

by jessiedoll



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Cute, Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 04:34:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17860376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessiedoll/pseuds/jessiedoll
Summary: 8 am comes fast when you're trying to make it to ballet class...





	Ballet and Pop-Tarts

**Author's Note:**

> ...technically Hilde doesn't appear in this but she's mentioned quite a bit and the kid is the result of Duo and Hilde's relationship so I tagged it as a pairing anyways? Anyhow. This relates back to the other fic I'm currently working on but it mostly spawned from a random piece of fanart I doodled up: https://gundayum.tumblr.com/post/182773919146/youre-gonna-regret-giving-her-that-pop-tart

“On what FREAKIN’ colony does a normal person schedule a ballet class for 4 year olds at 8 am?!” Duo complained out loud to nobody as he ran around the bedroom looking for a shirt that didn’t have a stain on it or one that didn’t smell like he’d worn it for a week. He finally managed to find the least stained one hanging off the mirror of the vanity, spritzed it with a bit of Hilde’s perfume and yanked it on. “I mean…earth, yeah. Fuck. I keep forgetting I’m on earth?”

Parenthood was taking a toll on his grooming habits and his brain.

Prior to the rugrat being born Duo had actually tried to dress decently all the time. Sure, it was typically jeans and t shirts but nothing had stains or holes in it and his hair was tidy all the time and his eyes didn’t consistently have dark circles under them.

These days he only owned about 3 pairs of jeans total, all of them ripped in the knees and he never wore them indoors because they were starting to get tight around the middle and that made it hard to do the chores in them. Every shirt he owned was now permanently scarred with a food stain or stretched out in the neck thanks to the kiddo pulling on them. His hair? On this morning he was going on day 4 of the same braid so his bangs were visibly greasy and there were pieces of loose hair poking out everywhere.

After splashing some water on his face, swishing around some mouthwash and spraying on way too much deodorant he felt somewhat human again and went to go find the child. The digital clock on the nightstand said 7:45 and if he managed to get her wrangled and in the car within 5 minutes they might actually make it to the class in time!

“Catty! Catriona?” Duo called out as he slammed a tea pod into the coffee maker. There were some tiny footsteps padding on the wood floor and a giggle out in the hallway. “You’d better be ready! We are NOT missing your first class!”

Almost on cue a tiny child with dirty blonde hair done up in 2 messy buns wearing a pink skirt over a black leotard appeared in the doorway. She already had her little ballet slippers on and a frown on her chubby face. “But daddy!”

“No BUTTS!”

“Breakfast!”

“...aw FUCK.”

Catty giggled at the use of the curse word and her dad rifling through the cupboards madly for something, a second later he fumbled with a small brightly coloured box and tore it opened with his teeth. Tossing her a silver foil package the kid actually managed to catch it.

“There, breakfast!”

“Pop-tarts! Pink ones!” Catty squealed and bounced up and down while ripping the packaging opened. She plopped cross legged in the floor and just started cramming one into her mouth.

While she got crumbs all over the kitchen floor Duo managed to have his tea made in the travel mug that said “#1 Dipshit” on it and started scanning the counter for the car keys. Finding them in the bottom of an empty but used cereal bowl he looped his finger through the key ring and swiped his mug in the same hand, using his free arm he scooped up Catty who was only about halfway through the pop-tart and made it halfway to the car before he realized he was barefoot but he didn’t exactly have time to go back and look for shoes.

Strapping his still eating demon spawn in her booster seat in the back and getting himself situated in the front Duo took one long swig of tea, cranked up the metal music Hilde had left playing from the last car trip and kicking up dust in the gravel driveway sped out onto the country road.

Catty screamed to the music between mouthfuls of sugary goodness and laughed manically every time her dad took a corner just a bit too sharply. This was EXACTLY why Duo and Hilde had decided a dance class would be a good idea. From morning until night this kid was absolutely WIRED, running all over the place and singing and making a mess. They thought maybe something with a bit of physical activity and structure would calm her down and teach her how to listen.

By the time they actually made it into town it was 7:58 and Duo screeched into the parking lot of the dance studio with enough time to grab his crumb covered child and bolt into the building with her tucked under his arm like a football. Once inside he put her down, brushed off the last of her breakfast and with a pat on the butt shoved her towards the circle of kids sitting in the middle of the studio floor.

Dragging himself past the other parents he planted himself at the end of a bench that was set up for them to watch and he didn’t have to look to know they were probably all judging him. Duo was a WRECK and seeing the other parents (all moms) sitting there with their clean looking hair and perfectly matched track suits with no bare feet in sight Duo felt like an absolute failure. But hey, at least his kid made it to her first class! Despite the rush to get there and his lack of sleep he couldn’t help but smile a bit because she did look happy bouncing around with the other kids her age. Or maybe she was happy due to the split decision pop-tart breakfast? Either way Duo had gotten her there in time so he decided that maybe he deserved to close his eyes for a few seconds…

***********************************************************************************

“...daddy? Can we go home now? I wanna watch The Lizard Steven Show.”

A small voice woke Duo from his slumber. It took him a few seconds to realize he was still sitting on the bench leaning against the wall, a bit of drool dripping out the corner of his mouth. Blinking the sleep from his eyes he wiped away the drool with the bottom of his only halfway decent shirt. The class was apparently over already even though he felt like he hadn’t napped at all. The other parents were milling about by the entrance chatting amongst themselves about their plans for the day while the instructor was checking something on her phone and waiting for the next gaggle of kids to come in for their class.

Duo looked down and saw Catty just sitting there patiently with a piece of folded paper in her hands, probably something from her new teacher.

“What do you have there, Catty?”

The little girl shrugged, stood up and planted herself on his lap before giving it to him. It looked like a piece of lined paper ripped out of a personal notebook and unfolding it he realized it was a handwritten note.

Oh no. Was one of those moms hitting on him? When he looked like he crawled out of a dumpster?

_Duo,_

_My name is Mindy. You look like you’re having a rough morning. If you need any help getting the parenting thing under control me and the girls will be more than happy to teach you a thing or two._

There was a phone number scrawled underneath but he’d actually forgotten his cell back at home on the dresser. Putting the folded up paper in his jeans pocket he glanced over at the other parents and saw a tall blonde lady with tan skin wave at him and assumed it was this Mindy from the note. She left with her set of twins before he could go over and say anything.

Catty was still a little ball of energy bouncing every step on the walk back to the car, probably due to those damn poptarts. The black pavement now burnt the bottom of Duo’s bare feet thanks to the sun so he was more than glad to get to the car that he thankfully parked under a tree (one thing his foggy brain had managed to do right). Once inside and secured he discovered his half finished tea was still a bit warm in the travel mug. Not the ideal drinking temperature but he wasn’t going to let it go to waste.

Leaving the music off Duo joined Catty in singing The Lizard Steven theme song on the drive home. Thanks to her he’d seen every damn episode at least 3 times and knew all the words to the songs and she laughed every time because he did a spot on Lizard Steven voice.

_“Lizard Steven, what are we gonna do today?_

_Maaaybe…build a fort or go to the tennis court!_

_Look at a wart on a toad! See what Mrs. Mouse sewed?_

_Here on Lizard Steven!”_

The entire annoying theme song was absolute nonsense but it did make the kid happy so he sang it with her anyways.

When they finally reached home Catty ran to the living room, turned on the flat screen and cranked up the beginning of her show. Duo really wanted to go back to bed but he still felt like she was too young to be left up alone and Hilde wasn’t going to be home to grab lunch for at least another hour. So instead of abandoning her for the sanctuary of the bedroom Duo flopped face first onto the couch, knowing full well he wasn’t going to sleep over the tv blaring but he just couldn’t be upright anymore.

After a couple of minutes of that goofy sounding cartoon lizard the sound suddenly cut out so Duo peeled an eye opened only to find Catty grabbing a blanket from the arm chair and dragging it over to him. She the best she could with her little arms to toss it over his torso and crawling up squeezed in next to him.

“Aren’t you gonna watch Lizard Steven?”

Catty yawned and nuzzled her head against his chest. “No, seen it and I’m sleepy.”

“You’re sleepy? After the pop-tarts?”

“...spinning too much.”

Within a few minutes she was out cold and snoring lightly, maybe the class had actually done some good? He really envied her ability to drift of to dreamland so fast, both Catty and Hilde could be out within minutes of hitting the pillow while it took Duo hours no matter how exhausted he was. He really didn’t expect to fall asleep lying there on his side sandwiched between his kid and the back of the couch but at least it was quiet now.

Instead of trying to drift off he just stared down at her and picked the elastics out of her buns that were about to unravel anyways. She had little natural blonde highlights all throughout her hair and neither Duo or Hilde had a clue where they came from in the gene pool since Hilde’s family was predominantly black haired, so they just assumed it was something from Duo’s mystery origins. He wondered sometimes if submitting his DNA would get any hits and bring up some long lost family but at the same time he already had enough to deal with. Besides, he’d already sort of built his own extended family. Why go looking for more?

The silence broke briefly when he heard his phone blaring from upstairs, all his friends had their own ring tone. This one was an old air raid siren and he’d picked it specifically for Heero who typically called whenever he needed assistance on a mission. It was seldom ever just to talk. There would be no missions today though, not unless they involved napping on the couch. The ringing eventually stopped and all was quiet again.

Duo buried his face in Catty’s hair, it had that artificial strawberry scent from the shampoo it had been washed in but it wasn’t a bad smell. That reminded him that he REALLY needed to wash his own, maybe when Hilde showed up he’d shove the kid off on her and go take care of it. He definitely missed being able to do things in his own sweet time, even basic things like brushing his teeth for more than 5 seconds or taking an hour to crawl out of bed in the morning. He hadn’t done that since Catty was born.

She was a pretty neat kid though, even with how hard to get her under control she could be. With her around Duo really couldn’t imagine going back to the way things were. That would mean no more dressing up in princess dresses or random tea parties at 6 am, definitely no more hair braiding sessions or pretend ER room with her collection of stuffed animals and the kitchen utensils. Yes, he was more consistently tried than he ever was in his entire life but he was also at his happiest.

He wondered all the time if he was the right person to be the primary care giver of a small child and feared that his past was going to affect her. At some point she’d probably figure out why he couldn’t sleep at night and he didn’t know what he’d possibly tell her. Catty was going to eventually hear about the war and his role in it, he didn’t want to reveal anything that would scare her but he also didn’t want her walking around with this sensationalized version of her dad’s exploits in her head.

Duo needed her to have an understanding of his reality so she didn’t follow the same path. Sure, there wasn’t really any outstanding threats to peace at the moment but he knew that things could go downhill very quickly if the right sequence of events took place. Sometimes no amount of preventative measures could stop things from snowballing into full on war.

At least in this moment he didn’t have to worry. She was still just a sleepy 4 year old who wanted to cuddle up to her dad and he hoped that no matter how old she got that she’d still find the time to annoying the living hell out of him.


End file.
